Differences between the old and new version of phpbb & proposed changes

fechter said:
neptronix said:
fechter said:
I don't see this. Where is it?

You'll see it in the upper left in the board index, or in a category view.

2017-11-30 07_59_10-Moderator Forum - Endless Sphere.png

In a forum view, it's on the right.

The one place it's not visible is in the individual posts. Although... i might be able to jam it in by shuffling the theme around.
This theme just doesn't always have a consistent place for the link to go.

Not in ProSilver theme.

Just curious; is there a theme editor somewhere? Some features are present only in certain themes. Some features should be in all themes.
I sort of like the Milk theme except the font colors make some things really invisible.

It would be great if there was a view your posts or quick links button at the bottom of the page next to the Home and Board index, etc.

There is no such thing as a theme editor. Each theme has a few hundred files and a good knowledge of CSS, HTML, and possibly Javascript plus a unix-compatbile text editor ( windows return characters in the files = entire display is broken ) is necessary to edit these themes.
These newer phpBB themes are responsive and incredibly complex. For example, it took me about an hour to add the 'view your posts' link to 2 pages and reformat the CSS so that goofy things didn't happen in mobile versus desktop.

I will see what can be done about adding the 'view new posts' to prosilver as well.
 
mark5 said:
neptronix said:
But here is what's planned.. aka the 'easy list':
...
2) Removing the subject from replies in thread views after the first post ( really.. this is just a waste of space that clutters things up )
Works fine except in the not often occurring case when merging a separately posted topic...
Actually, I know that both Justin and I put different subjects on posts if they have useful explanations, etc. This makes the search results bring up something pertinent about the post and makes the post stand out on the page. For instance, all of the many CA3 beta release posts that contain new firmware have unique subjects (e.g. "v3.1 Beta 16 Released"). In another post I had a subject something like "Testing Controller FETs and Motor Phases with or without a DMM" so the subject is called out even though it's a sort of off topic response. Now there's nothing there to clue in the reader what the post is about.

Certainly moving forward a text Title in a larger font size can be manually inserted but that seems so backward when the concept of 'subject' is so all pervasive and already supported by dedicated entry fields. (Luckily, I also put text titles in all the CA firmware release posts so they are still visible as significant posts for CA users in the 150+ pages of posts in that thread even though all the subjects are gone...).

  • FWIW-
    Instead of discarding the 'Subject' feature entirely, IMHO it would have been better to repair the specific aspect that seemed troublesome (screen real estate for duplicate subjects) .

    I think it would have been better to have suppressed display of the subject line only if it was the same as the topic. That would recover space for posts that don't use the subject feature but would have left the 'subject' feature intact for those that do use it. Similarly, merged threads would retain the subject of their original posting and so would be visible.
 
THIS IS IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO BE AVAILABLE

“Actually, I know that both Justin and I put different subjects on posts if they have useful explanations, etc. This makes the search results bring up something pertinent about the post and makes the post stand out on the page. For instance, all of the many CA3 beta release posts that contain new firmware have unique subjects (e.g. "v3.1 Beta 16 Released"). In another post I had a subject something like "Testing Controller FETs and Motor Phases with or without a DMM" so the subject is called out even though it's a sort of off topic response. Now there's nothing there to clue in the reader what the post is about.”
 
Please put subjects back!
 
I also change the subject line in specific posts for a number of reasons, so this information is now invisible. As threads mature the first post can be modified and these new titles accrue to new posts unless the poster specifically changes it. In addition the merging of threads is harder to follow when the titles are lost.

Additionally, the first line text now often crawls under the upper right buttons and make it difficult to read because the titles are not there to push the first line further down.

Tweaking the themes causes lots of side effects, new conflicts and issues.

Thanks for all your effort.
 
Here's how it looks:

Capture.JPG

Not a big deal but does make a few words unreadable sometimes.


Is it possible to "borrow" or import themes from somebody else who has got one dialed in nicely?
 
Well since there was so much opposition to removing the subject lines, i put them back.
No use adjusting the small visual glitch without them.

Is it possible to "borrow" or import themes from somebody else who has got one dialed in nicely?

Yes, but due to the low popularity of phpbb >3.0.x and the mega complexity of the mobile compatible themes, you won't find many themes out there. We spent days looking for a better theme than the default one and the best one we could come up with was the milk theme.

..but that theme would be even more polarizing than this one.. so what you're looking at is my improvement of an improvement on subsilver ( se_square ), with various odd gaps and display bugs fixed, plus the fonts tuned up significantly.

If you can find a better theme, feel free to throw it out there.
 
I can't find posted reference to matter, so:

What's become of the edit history and the operative plan?
All the old history has gone missing and new edits don't seem to generate retrievable history either.

No strong feelings - I can't say that I'm a huge fan - personally, I mostly use it to examine deleted posts...
 
I am getting used to it now, but the phpBB's in page border never changes.
I marked it in red for the picture below. I do CNTRL then mouse scroll up or down to get the text right.
 
It'll go away as you zoom in Ctrl+ to increase font size (depending on your browser's function keys).

But then everything gets bigger (not just the text).
 
The red lines (in my attached picture above) of the border stay the same. Maybe its just my browser. But its no big deal, very minor problemo amigo.
 
Ah, well, if I have my FF browser fullscreen like yours, the border goes away for me once I'm about 7 levels in on the font increase. Less with a narrower window.

Normally I only use my browser about 5/8 my screen width, and only 5 levels greater font size. That's at 1680x1050 on a 22" (IIRC) Samsung widescreen.

(I keep other windows/etc open or need space for them onscreen for various things I'm doing at the same time as browsing/posting/reading, *and* I don't like having to traverse a very wide screen to read things--I prefer keeping the whole "page" in the center of my view like a book page, so I don't get lost while reading lines of print, especially while scrolling up or down. )
 
amberwolf said:
Ah, well, if I have my FF browser fullscreen like yours, the border goes away for me once I'm about 7 levels in on the font increase. Less with a narrower window.

Normally I only use my browser about 5/8 my screen width, and only 5 levels greater font size. That's at 1680x1050 on a 22" (IIRC) Samsung widescreen.

Holy crap amberwolf..
I have a 28" 1920 x 1080 display and i can read at a zoom level of 0 but legally need glasses to drive.
What kind of eye problems do you have?
 
I could "read" it at that level, but it would give me a headache pretty quickly, squinting and turning my head and whatnot to follow the lines.

It's easy and comfortable at 5 levels up, less so at 4, etc.

No reason to strain oneself if there's no need (isn't that half of why we're putting motors on our bikes? ;) ), so I do what's comfortable.

Unfortunately there's quite a lot of things that don't correctly support doing this, so I end up hacking things visually as much as I can.

I have bifocals for things like reading small print, but they're really only good for about 12-16" away, and only for the tiny area the bifocal part exists in. The other part lets me see normally farther away (like for riding). Outside of the 12-16", it's easier to see without them, by just making print bigger, etc.

I used to be so nearsighted that I could read the tiny decals that came with Tamiya military models, which just look like dots or streaks to most people, but actually are faithful replicas of the labels on things, just in millimeter-scale. :) But nowadays I'd need a microscope to see those things (I'm almost 50 :shock: just after the next fire anniversary).

I also have always had trouble with certain color combinations, like red text / white background and to a lesser extend white text on red background--those blur together unless I hold my head sideways, which makes it a little better. It's worse with skinny vertical letters, vs wide horizontal ones (and that part is also true of most other text on any color combinations). Black text on an amber background is the easiest to read, but the bright color gives me a headache after a while. (used to be that amber on a black background (like dumb terminals) worked really well, but it gets blurry nowadays unless the letters are really thick or huge). Lightly shaded ambers (like dimmer incandescent-lit paper) are not quite as easy to read but they don't give me a headache. The next best is the light blue backgrounds with black text. Just black and white is another headache waiting to happen.



(also, the frames of my glasses are disintegrating (my sweat/skin destroys things plastic or metal or cloth), and they're the last set of frames I have that fit these lenses; I don't know anywhere that will let me buy just the frames, they require that I pay to get a new prescription and pay to get new lenses, and I definitely cant' afford that--I couldn't even get two sets of glasses, one for reading / computers and one for walking/riding around, back after the fire when I got the ones I have now. So I also don't wear them unless I have to right at that moment. I have one set of Bill's old glasses that are close enough to my far-seeing prescription to wear for short rides, so I use them for my work commute, since the lenses sometiems fall out of mine, and I don't want to lose them on the road. But I start to get a headache wearing them for much longer than that).
 
nicobie said:
nicobie said:
It's probably just me, but I can't find a way to stay logged in. I check the "save me" box but am not getting any results. It's kind of irritating having to log in every day.

thanks,

Nick

I must be the only one here with this problem...
Did you readed :) neptronix's posts before, in this same topic, about login problems? If no, you not only one have a problem. Example:


neptronix said:
Harold in CR said:
Still always requires login even though I have the remember password box checked [...]

My suspicion is that you have a bookmark for https://endless-sphere.com or something.
https:// and http:// are considered different sites by cookies.

[...]
 
Could you add that "sneak preview" when mouse hovering over a subject thread? Thread preview on mouse over I think it is called. Use the least intrusive one with plain text. Very nifty.

104201


See more about topic preview here:
https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/extension/topicpreview/
 
macribs said:
Could you add that "sneak preview" when mouse hovering over a subject thread? Thread preview on mouse over I think it is called. Use the least intrusive one with plain text. Very nifty.

That's kinda cool, but not cool enough for me to support as we upgrade and maintain the system. It also adds size to the output of all the pages, and that would increase our bandwidth charges for not much gain. ( i think a lot of people will ignore the previews and just open a new tab )

But if you find some super cool phpbb extension, i still wanna know about it.

But... as of a few days ago, all the big technical problems with this new system have been ironed out, other than problems with editing the wiki, so here is my list for future improvements.

1) get tapatalk working again.
2) add my custom image resizer code ( bandwidth/storage size control.. which is already out of hand at 7gb of text and 30gb of images! )
3) get back to the list of phpbb extensions i was tasked with checking out. In particular, we need one that can help with social media sharing.. because ES shares on facebook, twitter etc look crappy.
 
neptronix said:
macribs said:
Could you add that "sneak preview" when mouse hovering over a subject thread? Thread preview on mouse over I think it is called. Use the least intrusive one with plain text. Very nifty.

That's kinda cool, but not cool enough for me to support as we upgrade and maintain the system. It also adds size to the output of all the pages, and that would increase our bandwidth charges for not much gain. ( i think a lot of people will ignore the previews and just open a new tab )

But if you find some super cool phpbb extension, i still wanna know about it.

But... as of a few days ago, all the big technical problems with this new system have been ironed out, other than problems with editing the wiki, so here is my list for future improvements.

1) get tapatalk working again.
2) add my custom image resizer code ( bandwidth/storage size control.. which is already out of hand at 7gb of text and 30gb of images! )
3) get back to the list of phpbb extensions i was tasked with checking out. In particular, we need one that can help with social media sharing.. because ES shares on facebook, twitter etc look crappy.


I will try to find documentation for you on the preview feature. Regarding the bandwidth is at almost negotiable, it will not add to your costs and page load should be about the same. Don't take my word for it, I will find back to the documentation that was once available with this add-on. You will see close to zero performance hit, close to zero bandwidth growth. Give me a weak or so, holiday next week.
 
Well, a single forum view page load has 50 posts. Based on the length of the text in the display, that looks like a paragraph, so 400 characters plus some overhead for the html tag.
So that's 20kb of data added to each page load of a listing of posts, for a short preview of posts that are usually long ( which reduces it's usefulness )
Each post listing comes in at around 151kb before gzip compression. So those pages would be 12.4% larger, and those pages get hit tens of thousands of times a day. So we're talking about gigabytes of extra data a month.

But the main thing is that i don't want to support it over the years. I only want the best and most important plugins. Plugins break every time you upgrade phpbb and then need manual repair ( extra time for me ) or removal.

Here's the other thing. half the internet's traffic is mobile devices. Mobile devices do not have a 'hover over a link' option. So we'd be chucking all this extra data out for no benefit to them.

Sorry man, but i gotta give you a hard 'no' on this one. But that doesn't mean i'm not interested in other ideas.
 
Not relating to the previous feature question, but to understand better the forum usage:

Is half this forum's traffic phones? Do they get the same response as computers?? (Generally mobile devices get different views)?

I find phones to be very marginal for forums. Phones are good for many things, not so much forums.

I think my phone does support hovering, Samsung Note's have styli. But phone bandwidth is a concern, loading text that is rarely viewed is not efficient. Of course there are dynamic ways to avoid preloading everything.
 
Alan B said:
Not relating to the previous feature question, but to understand better the forum usage:
Is half this forum's traffic phones? Do they get the same response as computers?? (Generally mobile devices get different views)?

I find phones to be very marginal for forums. Phones are good for many things, not so much forums.

I think my phone does support hovering, Samsung Note's have styli. But phone bandwidth is a concern, loading text that is rarely viewed is not efficient. Of course there are dynamic ways to avoid preloading everything.

You know, i can't say i am sure about our statistics. But slightly over half of web traffic is now mobile phones:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/277125/share-of-website-traffic-coming-from-mobile-devices/

You can check our mobile layout by shrinking a browser window horizontally. It works well.

Yeah, some mobile devices do have hovering, if you have a stylus or a special screen. But you can generally expect a mobile device to not have it. If they do have it, the user might not be aware of how or why to use it.

Our big bandwidth killer is images. That has to be worked on.
 
Hehe I didn't take into account the high traffic this forum got, yeah you are right. At those numbers even text will add to bandwidth consumptions. For me personally I prefer forum usage from a computer and try to stay away from using smartphone, especially for lengthy responses and debates even using swype or similar rapid write tools creating text on smartphones is pain compared to letting your pointer fingers finding the home row keys on a tactile pc keyboard and type blindly without effort. Surprised more then 50% of users are on mobile devices. For most users the preview feature would mean nothing if visiting from mobile device. Man I am getting old and stuck'd in my ways.
 
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